Has anyone sen this video?
I saw it a few years back on PBS, and actually bought the DVD.
Imagine a 50+ year old man/woman building a log cabin BY HAND in the Alaskan wilderness?
It is impressive to see the process, and to learn that this guy spent 30+ years living up there by himself.
Oh, and he started it in the 60's.

It just goes to show how mentally sound he was.
How many of us could tolerate being alone for a week, let alone for months on end?
One thing that always sticks in my mind when I watch it was when, after he had finished the fireplace, and in the middle of winter, he quotes that the cabin is a "balmy" 40 dgrees.
Now that's hardcore!

Unreal film. On top of the incredible physical effects those winters must have had on him, the psychological impact must have been just as brutal.

For sure, we are such whimps compared to the settlers and back woods men.
I have a copy of an 1854 letter from my Great Grandfather sent back home after he raised 10 kids in England, then came to Virginia after his wife died and brought a Daughter and Grandson to build a log cabin and start a farm at age 70!!!!
He describes the winter snows, depression, eating nothing but corn mash and his Grandson dying from exposure the first winter. He and his Daughter cleared 8 acres of land the first two years, no chainsaws!!, and died of exposure himself.
And we complain if we run out of hot water.